


Tea and Cigarettes

by rinwins



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures, Problem Sleuth (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Crossover, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-08
Updated: 2013-11-08
Packaged: 2017-12-31 20:35:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1036099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinwins/pseuds/rinwins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, the queen made of space met the god space was made of. </p>
<p>(Snowman and lady!GPI, because any excuse to write transcendent spaceweirdy femslash, right?)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. >GPI: Fondly regard universe.

**Author's Note:**

> I blame Seiya234 for drawing lady!GPI in the first place, and for accidentally putting her next to Snowman and provoking the Feelings About Space Ladies. Also for continuing to enable this nonsense once I had got started. I'm not sorry.

**> GPI: Fondly regard universe.**

That is suddenly somewhat trickier to do, since, for some reason, the universe has decided to manifest itself as a person.

You are not easily confused, being an omniscient creator goddess and all, but this is… strange. You certainly don’t remember telling any of your infinite temporally-split selves to re-form into an entirely different woman. And if you had, she wouldn’t be so _suspicious_. And she probably wouldn’t smoke. That’s got to be bad for the nebulae.

The universe looks equally suspicious at the prospect of being fondly regarded. She takes another slow drag from her cigarette and stares at you with her star-dark eyes narrowed, but she does accept the tea you offer her.

And, once the universe takes the hint about the ashtray you also conjure up, it’s actually somewhat pleasant. 


	2. Seven Out Of Twelve Out Of Infinity, or, Universe: Be Fondly Regarded

The first time you visit the Godhead, she offers you an ashtray and tea in a golden cup. You can’t figure out what she wants. The cup is vast, the size of a galaxy, with stars swirling inside it like sugar. When you reach out to take it anyway (you’re sure it’s a challenge and you’re not going to pass it up) your hand briefly encompasses the universe, and when you pull back again your hand and the teacup are both a perfectly normal size. The tea, surprisingly, is pretty good. For tea.

The second time you visit, the Godhead has tea for herself and coffee for you. It’s rich dark espresso, exactly the way you like it, and while you sip it carefully you discover that the lotus petals of infinity are actually quite comfortable to sit on.

The fourth time, you ask her what she wants from you. She smiles the same little smile she always wears, and tells you, nothing. You’re suspicious. You think it might be true.

The seventh time, you don’t even bother lighting your cigarette. You stay much longer than usual, slipping your heels off to feel the strange not-texture of the petals under your feet, and you sit in silence. You don’t notice until you’re leaving that she didn’t bother with the ashtray.

The eighth time you ask her again what she wants, and she reminds you that you’re the one who comes to visit her.

The eleventh time you visit, you’re bloody and bruised and you tear through nebulae with the heel of your shoe and smoke five cigarettes in a row. You wonder why you came here, of all places. You tell her you didn’t mean to come. You do not apologize. She smiles at you, and you think it might be a different smile from the one she always wears.

The twelfth time, you slip off your shoes and climb right up into the highest petals. She’s a perfectly normal size when you reach her, or you’re both as vast as infinity- either way, you sit with four arms around you, wreathed in galaxies like smoke.


	3. Bees And Black Holes And Everything

“You are so beautiful.”

“You say that about everything.”

“Well. Yes.”

“Yesterday you said that about a _bee_.”

“It was true.”

Snowman sighs. “You really know how to make a lady feel special.”

There’s a pause.

“You’re upset.”

“I’m not upset, I don’t understand. How am I anything to you if you feel the same way about bees and- and black holes, and ugly dogs, and everything? Yes, I know, you’re fond of me, but you’re fond of _everything_.”

“And that means the way I feel about you doesn’t count?”

“Well- yes.”

There’s another pause, longer this time. The fractal flowers turn gently.

“Snowman, I am very fond of you. _And_ of creation, and you are creation. You’re part of it and every part of it is a part of you. How can you be more to me than the rest of the universe when you are the universe?”

“That shouldn’t make sense. It _doesn’t_ make sense.”

“It doesn’t?”

“Not to me. I was just a person before I was the universe, remember?”

“So was I.”

“But you’re not anymore, and most of the time I still am.”

Fractional pause, the width of an atom. “I don’t understand.”

Snowman closes her eyes. “Of course you don’t. Look, sometimes I don’t want to be the whole universe to you. But I’m not sure you can see me as anything else.”

“You _are_ upset.”

“I’m a little upset.”

“But you’re not leaving.”

“No. No, I am not. I’m… fond of you too, for some reason.” Then she smiles. “Besides, I realized something.”

“Oh?”

“That was the most words I’ve ever heard you use at the same time.”

“That was only one word.”

“I mean fifteen lines ago.”

A pause.

“Oh.”


	4. Petrichor

It doesn’t rain in Midnight City. First and worst outpost of so-called civilization in an unchanging post-apocalyptic waste, and so on.

And yet.

As you wake up, in the little apartment you keep for yourself out in the city, the air is quiet and full of a strange soft smell. It fills your half-conscious senses and you turn over, reaching for someone-

That wakes you up properly. Of course there’s no one else in your bed. You kicked Slick out at sunrise, before you so much as started to clean up, and the only other people you’d share a bed with are either dead or- oh, no.

You get dressed, _not_ in a hurry, and warp out to the desert.

The air is hot, outside of the city limits, but not as hot as it should be. The pinks and oranges in the dunes are muted, and the smell is sharper here- water and dust and the forgotten soil far underneath. And, sure enough, out to the west the rain clouds retreat into the sunset. They must have passed over the city during the day.

You want to be furious. And you are, a little, but the rain-smell and the calm hush of the wind are making that very difficult. If you were anyone else, you’d be at a complete loss to explain this. But you’re in the unique position of knowing _exactly_ who is responsible.

You should confront her. You know this means she wants to see you. But you don’t want to see her. You haven’t, not in weeks. If you see her you know you’ll want to hurt her, because you can’t care about anything without eventually wanting to hurt it. Not Derse, not the gang, not Slick, and not her. And if you admit you want to hurt her, that means admitting you care- and you don’t have room for that. Not with the way you know things have to go.

But here you are with the cooling air and the smell of rain sinking into the sand, and she’s showing you that she _does_ have room.

You can’t let this happen.

You concentrate for a moment and then you warp again.

Usually, when you visit her, you appear at what you think of as your normal size. You like to remind her of perspective. This time you are vast as space, vast as the universe that is your heart and your blood now, as vast as she is. Out here in the void, away from the sunset and the rain-smell, your rage expands.

She smiles. You can’t take this.

“ _I’m going to destroy you_ ,” you say, the voice of stars dying in the void.

She smiles, and she holds out her four arms to you, lotus petals and the smell of rain. “Snowman, I know.”

“The whole time?”

“Almost,” she says, “yes.”

You lose grip on your vastness, and some of your anger. You’re drifting on a petal of infinity. She is vast and reaching out for you. “I won’t regret it,” you say. “The deal was made long before I met you.”

“And you still want it?”

You think of Derse. You think of the ring in the vault, the shape you couldn’t bear to take, of the desert and the heat and watching in the station screen as your king died huge and monstrous on the battlefield. You think of Scratch, of a green mansion with a thousand clocks and no windows, of how much it hurt the first time you bled blue. You think of Slick. And the shadow-dark city, and a space left in empty sheets and sunset and rain, and her. The Godhead. All her.

“More than anything,” you say.

She is your size, drifting on petals. She smiles. “I don’t mind.”

Of course she doesn’t. You should have known. She holds out her hands to you and you take them. Oh well, stranger things have happened. Creation loving destruction. Rain in the desert.

“Come see me,” she says.

“I _am_ seeing you,” you point out.

“I mean, you don’t have to stay away.”

“I know,” you say. “I will. Soon.”

You warp out.

The sun is down and the city is waking up. You have things to do tonight, up at the mansion, but you think you’ll walk there. There’s still the smell of rain drying in the streets.


End file.
